The Punch Line
The Punch Line is the first full-length album and third record release by The Minutemen, and the fourth-ever release (catalog number SST-004) from SST Records. History Less than half the length of most LPs, the total playing time for all eighteen songs on The Punch Line is a mere fifteen minutes. The album was an early milestone release for both the band and SST. The Minutemen, seeking to be as economical as possible in recording their first album, recorded The Punch Line at Media Art Studios (SST Records' preferred studio at the time, where Spot was working as an engineer) during one late-night session (when studio time was the cheapest), recorded on previously used tape, and recorded the songs exactly in the order in which they appeared on the record. Overdubs were minimal if anything; Hurley's vocal on "Ruins" was actually cut during the basic track stages and picked up by the overhead drum mics. The title track makes fun of General George A. Custer's death at the hands of Sitting Bull during the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Another track on the album, the instrumental "Song For El Salvador", reflects D. Boon's support of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador. (Boon was a member of the NGO Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, or CISPES). Even though the group's name was a reference to their personal and political ideology and not a reflection of the average length of their songs, only two of the songs on The Punch Line pass the one-minute mark. Most average between thirty and forty-five seconds. Spot revealed during his interview for the Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo (preserved in the DVD's deleted scenes section) that the first pressing of the record was done with what he considered to be an inferior mastering job and set of stampers; he took possession of the stampers in order to prevent further pressings from being done, forcing a remaster that was used on all vinyl pressings since then. Spot also recalled in the same interview that when he was assembling the master reel for the album, he had some difficulty finding the beginning and ends of songs because all of the songs were so short. When he was assembling the master reel, he would cut each song out of the unedited reel and tape it to a table with the name of the song attached; each song, according to Spot, ran an average of five feet of 1/4"-width reel-to-reel tape. Descendents vocalist Milo Auckerman was a witness to one of the mixing sessions for The Punch Line, according to his own interview for We Jam Econo. (Spot was also working on the Descendents' first album for New Alliance Records around the same time period.) The Punch Line also appears on the My First Bells cassette and the Post-Mersh Vol. 1 CD. The opening track, "Search", represented The Minutemen on the second Rodney on the ROQ compilation album on Posh Boy Records, while four other songs, including the title track, were featured on the compilation cassette The Future Looks Bright Ahead, jointly issued by Posh Boy and SST in 1981. Track listing Side one #"Search" – 0:51 (Hurley, Watt) #"Tension" – 1:18 (Tamburovich, Watt) #"Games" – 1:01 (Boon, Watt) #"Boiling" – 0:58 (Hurley, Watt) #"Disguises" – 0:45 (Boon) #"The Struggle" – 0:40 (Boon) #"Monuments" – 0:48 (Hurley, Watt) #"Ruins" – 0:49 (Hurley, Watt) #"Issued" – 0:38 (Hurley, Watt) Side two #"The Punch Line" – 0:40 (Watt) #"Song for El Salvador" – 0:31 (Boon) #"History Lesson" – 0:37 (Boon) #"Fanatics" – 0:30 (Watt) #"No Parade" – 0:50 (Boon) #"Straight Jacket" – 0:58 (Watt) #"Gravity" – 0:55 (Hurley, Watt) #"Warfare" – 0:54 (Hurley, Watt) #"Static" – 0:50 (Boon, Watt) Musical personnel *D. Boon - guitar and vocals *Mike Watt - bass and vocals *George Hurley - drums, lead vocal in the middle of "Ruins" Other personnel *Spot - record producer, recording engineer Artwork *D. Boon - front cover *George Hurley - back cover Category:LPs Category:SST Records releases Category:Minutemen releases Category:Records produced by Spot Category:Records engineered by Spot Category:Records with artwork by D. Boon Category:Records with artwork by George Hurley